World Youth Alliance Europe (WYAE) has submitted targeted legal responses to the Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) following the recent reviews of three separate EU-funded projects: Operating Grant 2024 (OG2024), Women’s Health Goes Digital (WHGD), and Youth Act 2024. Each review raises serious concerns about the interpretation and application of the Erasmus+ Grant Agreement and the purported linkage of critical positions on issues such as surrogacy to alleged non-compliance with “EU values.”
These reviews have attracted significant attention within European policy circles and civil society. In November 2025, WYAE’s initial comprehensive response to the EACEA’s grant review letters was published in December 2025 (see “World Youth Alliance Europe Response to the EACEA Grant Review Letters”). 15 Members of the European Parliament publicly raised concerns over the review process, urging the Commission to uphold the rule of law and respect for fundamental freedoms in grant evaluations (see “MEPs Raise Alarm Over European Commission Review of World Youth Alliance Europe”).
In each case, the reviews characterise certain activities, including the treatment of topics such as surrogacy, as potential deviations from the Grant Agreement obligations, implying that critical or negative presentations of these topics may run afoul of expected “EU values and ethical standards.” WYA has rejected this interpretation and, in each targeted response, has explained why such readings of Article 14 conflict with EU law, Member State legal diversity, and fundamental freedoms protected by the EU Charter.
The response addresses a particularly serious issue: the Review treats opposition to surrogacy as a violation of “EU values,” effectively pressuring civil society organisations to promote or legitimize a practice that is illegal in most EU Member States. This goes far beyond a disagreement over policy priorities. It raises fundamental concerns about EU law, subsidiarity, and freedom of expression.
What the Review Claims
In its assessment, the EACEA Review states that there are “deviations from Article 14” of the Grant Agreement because certain activities “systematically omit certain topics or present them in a negative way,” explicitly naming abortion and surrogacy.
In other words, the Review treats the critical or negative presentation of surrogacy as a compliance problem. The clear implication is that, in order to remain aligned with “EU values and ethical standards,” a beneficiary organisation must avoid critical positions and adopt a neutral or even positive framing of surrogacy.
WYAE cannot accept this interpretation.
Surrogacy Is Not an EU Value
First and most importantly, surrogacy is not an EU value within the meaning of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. The EU Treaties contain no recognition of a right to surrogacy, nor do they impose any obligation on civil society organisations to endorse or promote it.
On the contrary, the legal reality across Europe points in the opposite direction. According to a February 2025 briefing by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), surrogacy is explicitly prohibited in at least nine EU Member States, including Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, and Spain. It is also implicitly prohibited in a further five Member States, such as Austria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and Sweden, through national rules governing assisted reproduction.
As of the publication of that report, only two EU countries (Greece and Cyprus) permit surrogacy, and only in a strictly altruistic form.
This legal landscape reflects widespread and persistent concerns about human dignity, the exploitation of women, and the commodification of children. It also confirms that surrogacy remains firmly within Member State competence, not EU mandate.
The Review Goes Further
The Review’s approach becomes even clearer in its assessment of WYAE’s blog content. In particular, it criticises a WYAE blog post titled “Surrogacy Concerns and Regulations,” noting that WYAE’s position aligns with the Casablanca Declaration on the Universal Abolition of Surrogacy.
The Review objects not because the post contains factual errors or discriminatory language, but because it presents arguments against surrogacy while “the arguments of the opposing view are not presented.”
In effect, the Review treats the expression of a principled anti-surrogacy position, and the absence of pro-surrogacy arguments, as a compliance concern under Article 14.
This makes the underlying issue unmistakable: the problem, in the eyes of the Review, is opposition to surrogacy itself.
Why This Crosses a Legal Line
By linking critical views on surrogacy to non-compliance with EU values, the Review effectively requires civil society organisations to legitimize, and in practice to promote or to use materials and/or speakers who promote, a practice that is illegal in the vast majority of EU Member States.
This is not a matter of interpretative nuance or methodological disagreement. The European Union cannot lawfully condition access to EU funding on the promotion, endorsement, or suppression of criticism of practices that are prohibited under binding national law.
Doing so exceeds EU competence, violates the principle of subsidiarity, and places organisations under pressure to align their public speech with positions that directly conflict with national legal orders. It also threatens fundamental freedoms protected by the EU Charter, including freedom of expression and freedom of association.
What WYA Is Calling For
For these reasons, WYA Europe considers the Review’s reasoning on surrogacy not merely mistaken, but contrary to EU law. A compliance assessment that treats opposition to surrogacy as a deviation from EU values is affected by a fundamental legal error and cannot serve as a valid basis for findings of non-compliance or financial consequences under the Grant Agreement. WYAE’s full response statements to the grant reviews on this issue are available as attachments to this article.
